Poisoning the discourse

The poisoning of the political discourse continues apace in America. Arguments are shouted down, Red-baiting is back. This from the Guardian:

Cheryl and her co-workers learned that the Honeywell division they had been working for had been sold to Sensata Technologies. They researched Sensata. she said:

“We found out this summer that it was owned by Bain [Capital]. Then we found the connection between Bain and Governor Romney. And that just spurred a little bit of emotion … we wanted to stand up and fight back and take a stand for the American people and for our jobs.”

Cheryl and her co-workers started a petition that got 35,000 signatures, which they delivered to Bain Capital in Evanston, Illinois. They work in Freeport, in the north-west corner of Illinois, not far from Iowa and Wisconsin. Tom Gaulrapp, another 33-year veteran of the Honeywell company now owned by Sensata/Bain, knew that Romney would be campaigning in both of those swing states. He described their efforts that followed:

“We attempted to bring an open letter to the Romney campaign headquarters after they repeatedly said that they were unaware of the situation. At every stop, when we tried to have contact with them, they locked us out of the building. [In] Madison, Wisconsin, they called the police on us.”

So they went to a campaign event where Romney was speaking, in Bettendorf, Iowa. Tom stood up and appealed to Romney to come to Freeport to help them save their jobs. He was shouted down by the crowd, which chanted, “USA! USA!” Tom continued:

“We’re there trying to save our jobs, and we were called communists. For trying to stop our jobs from going to communist China.”

I asked Cheryl why they were targeting Romney, who no longer runs Bain. “Mitt Romney created the model of outsourcing jobs,” she explained:

“He created Bain … he is still reaping very high benefits from Bain, financially. So he can pick up the phone and call his buddies and say, ‘We need to stop this practice and keep the US jobs here.'”